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out of cervix

It’s been said that to be successful in life, you must learn something new each day. If this is truly the case, then yesterday I was SUPER SUCCESSFUL at life because I learned not one but several very important things:

That thing where people faint at the sight of needles or blood is called a Vasovagal Syncope (which is also the name of my Gogol Bordello cover band)

My Mirena 2.0 officially expired in February. I took my sweet ass-time getting a replacement for it, but everything came to a head yesterday afternoon during the Swappening: the removal of 2.0, and insertion of 3.0.

I was already not looking forward to it, because I remember how much it hurt during the previous Swappening. Still, the very real dangers of unscheduled sperm showers haunted my every step, and I felt it was probably time to put on my big girl pants and just get it done already. After all, it’s been over five years. Surely it wasn’t as bad as I remembered it!

Yeah, no, it was SO MUCH WORSE.

I was given the option to allow a medical student doing her rounds to be present during the swap. I said yes, because it wouldn’t be the first time my vagina would be on display for rotating groups of strangers. They then asked if I minded if she did the first part of the procedure, to which I also said yes – I was half naked, in stirrups, and as compromised as I could get on a random Tuesday afternoon, so why the hell not. This may have been a mistake, as her snazzy white lab coat belied her level of experience: she was pretty green. Greener than I was about to be. Her bedside manner was quasi-soothing, but her actions were jerky which is never an adjective you want used when someone is all up in your business with clamps and industrial lubricant. There were issues locating my cervix, long pauses for explanations, and several comments about the weather as I just sort of laid there with my nethers flapping in the wind.

Then everything went sort of grey and soggy.

Apparently I am triggered by my cervix being manhandled, and I went into a classic vasovagal reaction: my pulse dropped like a hammer, I broke out into a full-body sweat, and things got real tinny and bright for a good long time. My doctor actually stopped the procedure when he noticed sweat pouring from my shins (did you know shins could sweat) and attempted to bring my pulse back up. This apparently was the best possible time for the student doctor to pipe up and say “okay, so I’m gonna take off now, bye”, and she left. Okay then. I’m sorry my troublesome vagina was not interesting enough for you to stay through the entire procedure, but you do you (and half of me).

The medical assistant came in to take her place, and I sort of pathetically asked her to fetch Ed for me (since this was all his fault, what with the penis and all) but he wasn’t in the lobby – he had gone out Harry Pottering. I endured an eternity of being asked to scooch in various directions while barely hovering on this side of consciousness before grabbing my phone (and dropping it on my face) to text Ed to get his ass back in the office. He eventually arrived to crack some jokes while I asked my doctor to just ignore my plummeting blood pressure and shove that thing all up in there already so I could go home and die in the dignity of my own home. The IUD was inserted, I almost fainted several more times, and then I got to listen to a monologue about what to expect with the Mirena and what could go wrong in the next 24 hours when all I desperately wanted was to recover some of my shame and lost fluids and leave this fluorescent hellscape for good.

Then I came home and slept for approximately one million years. I am now awake, full of cramps and baby-preventing hormones, and still feeling quite woozy about the whole thing. If I stop too long to think about it, I start to get really faint and spinny again. I’m told I’ve got another day of this, then things should mellow out in my uterus considerably.

F——, would not vasovagal again.

it looks like you are trying to avoid procreation! do you need assistance?